Complementary use of hyphenated purge-and-trap gas chromatography techniques and sensory analysis in the aroma profiling of strawberries (Fragaria ananassa).

The aroma compositions of Fragaria ananassa varieties are assessed by purge-and-trap high-resolution gas chromatography. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and gas chromatography/Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy allow the identification of 93 components from which 21 are for the first time described as constituents of strawberry aroma. Despite the complexity of the aroma, sensory properties are assigned to 40 components as perceived by three independent testers by application of a sniffing technique to the chromatographic effluent. The data are used for comparative sensory characterization of strawberry varieties by means of principal component analysis.